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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Old Wives Tales, Holiday Edition

You wouldn't have pegged my grandmother as an ornery sort, but she was.  Must've been that Irish blood.  When, as a college student, I visited England and Ireland, she raved over even the most innocuous photo I showed her of the Irish countryside, but she didn't want to see even one photo of London.

As an old wife of long standing, she had all the required "old wives tales" stored away in her brain, ready to brandish at a moment's notice. For example, she took my mother, myself and my two brothers Christmas shopping when I was about five or six, and of course we stopped to sit on Santa's lap.  When we were done sharing our Christmas lists with the old guy, he gave us each a piece of candy.  I got a clear red little ball that shattered into little hot cinnamon-y pieces when I bit into it. One of those pieces gave me a little cut on the inside of my cheek, and the hot cinnamon just aggravated the cut.  I spit the pieces out and whimpered, which was enough to send my grandmother into action. She walked right back up to Santa, chastised him for giving a little child candy that would cut his mouth and demanded a softer piece.  She came back with soft taffy and another of her comforting scientific facts:  "Cuts in your mouth heal faster." I've never really seen any scientific proof for or against that, but it worked so well I used it on my kids a few times.

I caught her once.  I was about fourteen, crammed in a car with cousins and an aunt and my mother and grandmother, one of a chain of cars full of cousins and aunts that was making the trip between church and the home of one of those aunts for Easter brunch. It was raining, and my grandmother said in her best "tsk tsk" voice that it was too bad, because legend has it that if it rains on Easter, it rains for seven Easters after that.

"Then we'd never have a dry Easter," I said from the back seat.  "Because if it rains next Easter, then that sets off the next set of seven rainy Easters, and the next one will start seven more rainy Easters, and on and on and on. It's perpetual."

My grandmother was silent in the front seat, but I don't think it was because she agreed with me, or was astounded by my brilliance.  I believe she was fuming. She never did directly address my comment, deciding instead to point out as we drove by, that there was a house with a lovey lilac bush near the front door, and mustn't that smell lovely in the summer.

I decided she just didn't hear me and left it at that.  I probably should have just bit my lip.  I understand cuts in your mouth heal faster.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Minority Rules!

A recent news report from the U.S. Supreme Court, taking up whether or not to renew the Voting Rights Act, said, and I quote:

At issue was the law's Section 5, which requires nine states, mostly in the South, and jurisdictions in other states to "pre-clear" any changes in voting laws with federal authorities.
Justice Antonin Scalia said Congress' decision in 2006 to re-authorize the law was not the result of a studied decision, but of a "phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement." Politicians, he said, are afraid to vote against legislation with the "wonderful" name of the Voting Rights Act.

I was alive in 1965 when the Voting Rights Act passed...not very old, but alive.  Old enough, though, to remember seeing pictures on the TV of civil rights marchers getting knocked off their feet by fire hoses and ripped up by police dogs.

Those civil rights marches came about because those who were in the minority of the U.S. population didn't have a place in society or government.  The Voting Rights act, and other laws like it, helped elevate African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, gays, and others into the mainstream of American society. 

So you see, the "majority rules" situation that for so many years kept old fat white men on top and minorities on the sidelines has been flipped, replaced by minority rule!  Hooray! Only problem is, the minority that's ruling now is made up of old fat white men like Scalia.